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“Did you flunk his lessons?”
“You’re the one who called me smooth. Do you think I flunked ’em?”
I threw my head back as I laughed this time, and he looked almost mesmerized when our eyes met again. Then, without warning, he put his hand on the side of my face and pulled me in, pressing his lips to mine.
It was brief, but it was no less earth-shattering than the one we’d shared on the patio in the moonlight. Well, the moonlight and the lights that I’d spent several painstaking hours dictating the placement of before the party tonight. I swear, those men balanced on those ladders were probably considering murder by the end of it, but at least I’d gotten them to admit the lanterns and string lights couldn’t have been more perfectly placed.
And now that I’d shared a kiss with this mystery man under those lights, I was even more convinced it was worth it to care so much about the perfect ambiance the lights created.
When he pulled back from the kiss, his lips were set into a grim line. It was almost like the bottom half of his face belonged to a wholly different person than the top part because his eyes were heated, reminding me of the playful way a fire danced on a warm summer night.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, nervous about why he’d look so conflicted after a kiss.
“I’m not sure if I should tell you.”
“Why not?”
He sighed, leaning back and picking up an olive from his plate. Before we’d gotten distracted with the eye compliments and the kissing, he’d been about to toss the olive at my face to see if I could catch it with my mouth because I’d laughed at him for trying and failing to do it himself.
Would he ignore my questions and get back to the silly game?
“Seems to me there’s a reason you don’t want us to tell each other who we are, and I was thinkin’ about why that might be,” he finally replied, staring out at the party from where we sat on a velvet-tufted bench with our backs against the wall.
Ah, so he wasn’t returning to the silly olive-throwing game, but instead, the bigger game that I’d been staunchly sticking to the rules of all night.
Like when he’d asked me point-blank if I was Laney’s manager, and I’d coyly deflected by making a joke about giving off managerial vibes.
Or when he’d started to tell me more about the drama between his brother and someone at the party, and I’d cut in by asking him if he was also a fan of reality TV romances or just the love lives of the people he knew.
He’d known what I was doing, to be sure, but he hadn’t stopped me. And now, whether he was willing to go along with the game or not, he wanted me to tell him why we were even playing it.
“That’s fair,” I mused, eating an olive from my own plate. I was using the need to chew as a chance to stall, and he didn’t rush me. “Maybe I’m thinkin’ of this as our own little fairy tale, where the clock strikes midnight, and everything goes back to normal. No complications, no expectations—just one night where the real world doesn’t exist.”
He hummed as he considered my words. “That’s a pretty picture you’re paintin’, but you’re forgettin’ one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“The clock already struck midnight, and thanks to that kiss, the real world felt about a million miles away.”
Speechless, I could only blink at him.
The corner of his mouth kicked up. “Besides, a fairy tale without an endin’ sounds more like a tragedy to me.”
“Um, no,” I protested, shaking my head. “A tragedy would be lettin’ this go on too long, and then the fun would just get leeched out by reality.”
“Why would it?”
“Because...” I trailed off, setting my plate to the side, no longer hungry. “Because I’m busy.”
“Busy?”
“Yes. You have no idea who I am or how little time I have for anythin’ outside of work. And what time I do have is filled with... family stuff. Responsibilities. I wouldn’t have the time to dedicate to anythin’ real between us, so why not just enjoy the fantasy while it lasts?”
“What if I don’t want it to end?”
I frowned. “We just met. I don’t even know you from Adam, and?—”
He laughed suddenly, cutting me off because it was impossible not to stare at him.
